The biggest I can think of is the view of God. When there is a view of a supreme being in Eastern religions, it's usually the view that it is part of everything and everything is part of it, not that it's an all-powerful being that doles out punishment and reward after death.

I'm gonna have to tackle this again after I get a square meal, my blood sugar's too low to think properly. :cover:

Oh boy Sunstone. Those questions are soooo big. I think we are naturally coming to terms with them as they play out on RF in the vast numbers of threads where the two are meeting, but its hard to see the wood from the trees.

All I can think to say right now is that Eastern religions don't have a significant split between theology and philosophy as has occured with Western religions. The split between human and God, nature and human isn't so marked either (as you and Jensa have mentioned). Because of this I think as the boundaries between Western and Eastern thought dissolve, Eastern philosophy/religion may help to fill the gap between science and religion, philosophy and theology, human and nature, etc. that we have in the West.

If I was to sum it up in two words I'd say the West has a more legalistic approach vs. the East has more of a metaphysical approach. Everything else is a domino affect of these two approaches.

Click to expand...

I agree with you to some extent here. But not because Western models are rule-bound while Eastern ones are not. I would say that like law, Western religions are based on a construction of a fictional individual with rights. This sets the Western religious individual apart from nature, because these rights are abstract although they are perceived by the believer as reality or truth. Eastern religions view the individual in a more metaphysical sense perhaps as you say, viewing the self as a fictional individual in a very broad sense. Maybe there is also less attachment to beliefs in Eastern religious traditions than Western, due to this perspective of the individual resulting in a less dogmatic and absolutist view of reality. Eastern religions are capable of absorbing other perspectives, rather than viewing them as strictly competing with one's own beliefs. Surely an adversarial legal model is a good analogy for Western religions.

The Abrahamic idea of a judgemental, anthropomorphic God does not fit well into the Eastern worldview.

It also seems to me that Eastern and Western religion have different goals.
The Western religions seek to avoid punishment and obtain reward by subscribing to correct beliefs and opinions. The concept of enlightenment is foreign to mainstream Abrahamic faiths.

Eastern religions seek a mystical psychic transformation. The seek to "wake up" to a different consciousness. The Eastern religious traditions are thus more like what we westerners would consider psychotherapeutic modalities

If I was to sum it up in two words I'd say the West has a more legalistic approach vs. the East has more of a metaphysical approach. Everything else is a domino affect of these two approaches.

Click to expand...

If this is true then Orthodoxy would be an eastern religion, which I don't think it is. Maybe Middle Eastern would truly work for us? We're certainly rather different to the eastern religions (as all Christians are) but we're also rather different in terms of legalism from western religions. I've often thought (having, as I do, a background in both Protestant Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism) that there are certain aspects of Orthodoxy that are closer to the east and others that are closer to the west. On the approaches you mention here, we're certainly well to the east.

The Abrahamic idea of a judgemental, anthropomorphic God does not fit well into the Eastern worldview.

Click to expand...

A judgemental and anthropomorphic God is not a necessary idea for Abrahamic faiths. Orthodoxy sees God as neither jus=dgemental nor anthropomorphic.

It also seems to me that Eastern and Western religion have different goals.
The Western religions seek to avoid punishment and obtain reward by subscribing to correct beliefs and opinions. The concept of enlightenment is foreign to mainstream Abrahamic faiths.

Click to expand...

Whilst we have no concept of enlightenment as such, the idea of theosis is not so very different. Certainly, the focus of Orthodox practice is not simply to attain reward and avoid punishment but rather the transformation of the self in such a way as to become more perfect and, through God's grace, more godlike. It is not so far from eastern ideas (and we, as the second largest Christian church, are most certainly mainstream).

Eastern religions seek a mystical psychic transformation. The seek to "wake up" to a different consciousness. The Eastern religious traditions are thus more like what we westerners would consider psychotherapeutic modalities

Click to expand...

As I said above, this is not so very different in Orthodoxy. We, too, see our practice in a therapeutic light and see God as the chief physician and His Church as hospital. Personally, I se the idea of eastern and western religions as being two wholly dissimilar groupings to be wrong. We, as I said in my reply to Victor, seem to stradle the two to some degree.